Day 5 Hawaii cruise

Next stop, Kona. We had booked a snorkel excursion and I almost cancelled it for fear it would be another rainy miserable day and I didn't want to be out on a small boat for hours. But Jim said, no, we need to get in the water at least once! 

Sure enough when we woke up and looked outside we couldn't see much for all the clouds and rain. Apparently the water was quite rough as well and delayed the tenders from starting their shuttle service to shore. They never did catch up all day long and everyone complained about spending much of their day standing in line for the tender .

Our excursion was scheduled for noon, so we had plenty of time. I took a hula class at 9. What fun. It was all about the hand gestures for 2 songs: ..shells, and Going to the HukiLau. Hula skills are divided into top half and bottom half. The top half tells a story with the hands while the bottom half does dance steps and hip motions with bent knees. The basic step is 2 steps left and 2 steps right with gently swinging hips - that movement is called 'Kaholo'. Then there is standing still and rotating hips in a circle- that movement is called umi. Our teacher told us "Don't do kaholo and umi at the same time" Sounds like words to live by to me! 😂

I learned that the fancy hip movements are from Tahitian dancing, not Hawaiian hula. Aha!

After hula it was time to get in line for our tender to shore and our snorkel trip. The sun was coming out and it turned into a gorgeous, hot, day.

Before going to the snorkel spot, the boat crew said we could spend a little bit of time looking for whales. Some call it whale watching, they call it whale finding. And they did! What a treat. We didn't see a breach, but the tail slaps we're impressive. 🤙

Then it was time for snorkeling. They had to get in the water in order to tie up to the submerged buoy, interesting. We brought our own masks and used their tiny flippers and then a snorkel. The water was 77 degrees we were told. Not as warm as I normally like it (over 80), but not bad. I was cold when we first jumped in but warmed up ok. Visibility was wonderful, very clear. Saw plenty of small tropicals '- lots of yellow tangs, black trigger fish, one giant trumpet fish and small cantina made up of volcanic rock with a little bit of coral growing in them. It felt great to be in the water! 

Then it was back to the line for the tenders to the ship. It was hot and the line was probably 200 people. NCL personnel we're hanging out cold towels with tongs, just like you get the hot towels to wash your hands at dinner, these were ice water soaked wash cloths to put in your head. 

I was SOO glad that Jim didn't let me cancel this excursion! What a fantastic day!